Songs III: Bird on the Water

Backed by the revered Philly psych-folk group Espers-- and produced by that band's frontman, Greg Weeks-- singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler's latest outing is her best yet, ensconsing songs of sorrow in impressionistic phrases and careful musicianship.

At first, Marissa Nadler's Songs III: Bird on the Water doesn't seem especially notable. It's a 12-track breakup album
detailing Nadler's pervasive loneliness, her gentle finger-style
guitar augmented with cello, percussion, mandolin, synthesizers, and electric
guitars. Her voice is remarkable from the outset-- a sad, husky air that climbs to
perfect grace notes with ease-- but by the time Nadler sings, "Oh my lonely
diamond heart/ It misses you so well," 100 seconds into opener "Diamond Heart",
you're pretty sure you've heard this one before.

Not so fast: As Nadler and her gorgeous,
incredibly isolated Songs III would have
it, there's plenty worth waiting for. Nadler doesn't want empathy for the hurt that caused her to
write "Diamond Heart" in a hotel room bathtub in New Jersey or "Bird on Your
Grave" for a friend who died mysteriously; she's just trying to ease some of
that monumental pain into the next space. And-- though its micro-payoffs may come in the form of a solitary
harmony here, a hushed mandolin chord there, or the eerie bells lending a richer atmosphere to the beautiful "Dying Breed"-- such a feeling makes Songs
III one of the most focused and
engaging singer-songwriter releases so far this year.

Of course, that can be a tough sell for folks accustomed to
concentrated emotional whomp. Aside from its presiding atmosphere
of pain, little about Songs III feels direct. It peels free in slow, steady layers, Nadler's sorrow ensconced
in impressionistic phrases and careful musicianship. As a songwriter, she's
still painting relationship trauma in grayscale sadness, occasionally calling
on stunning images-- "eyes as deep as brandy wine," "red-painted lips and a
jezebel crown," "breaking on the daylight"-- to better realize sullen torment.
But that latter layer makes Songs III much more effective than Nadler's 2005 debut, The Saga of
Mayflower May.

Nadler's a bandleader now: With
acoustic wonderment still in place, she brings most of Philadelphia's Espers to
bear here. They augment without distracting, building on her gravitas with
quietly breathtaking nuance: A cymbal-scrape pallor from Otto Hauser, or Jesse Sparhawk's weeping mandolin; like Helena Espvall's doubled cello
parts smeared over Nadler's "rose-colored dreams" on "Thinking of You", these
sounds highlight the words. Even the album's loudest moment, Greg Weeks'
piercing electric lead on "Bird on Your Grave", won't wow you from afar, but it
will pull you close enough to identify with Nadler's pain.

As a vocalist, Nadler stretches this environment towards
infinity: By doubling and tripling her vocals and lacing several distinct
interpretations of one melody, she implies that her despair is now as it was
then as it always will be. During a splendid, organ-and-guitar take on Leonard
Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat", for instance, the narrator's desolation comes
doubled in verses, tripled in the chorus, and chased consistently by the organ.
Doom follows her like a rain cloud, it seems, soaking her feelings but
powering this, her best set of songs yet. Sure, that's a mundane thing to say
about an artist, but on Songs III, it's
notable after all.